Joe Finley Wants to Be the New Boss

Joe Finley is running for County Executive to save us all from bossism. Not that he’ll tell us what the hell that means:

Finley, 58, said he wants to end ''bossism'' in the county. He lost in a closer-than-expected primary last fall to longtime Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic.
''If anybody understands bossism in Summit County, it's Joe Finley,'' he said.
He declined to comment further, other than saying his primary results were encouraging. He said he would make a full statement Friday afternoon when he files campaign petitions with the Summit County Board of Elections.

Oh, just can’t wait for that, Joe.

By “bossism” it’s fair to assume that he refers to current Executive Russ Pry having been Democratic Party Chair. And when he says that he understands it better than anyone, it’s safe to assume he’s referring to the party backing Mayor Plusquellic in the primary last fall.

Opposing bossism in this formulation isn’t in itself a bad thing. Certainly it is within the political experience of most Americans that bosses don’t necessarily work for the common good, often working instead for their own. And I have had my disagreements with Pry who has not always been friendly to grassroots involvement in the party process.

That said, simply running against bossism isn’t a platform. And just like in the last election, Finley is unlikely to offer either workable ideas of his own or a record of accomplishment. He will only be able to criticize his opponent. Worse, his criticisms will likely be an incoherent and knee-jerk as before.

Worse still, he’s not running against Plusquellic’s personality this time. Instead, his opponent is a genuinely nice guy who has made many friends and (within the party anyway) few enemies. And he just played a big part in inking the deal to keep Goodyear in town – a deal Finley will no doubt run against. And unlike the last primary, Finley can’t count on either taking advantage of a low turnout or urging Republicans to cross over to vote for him.

If Finley’s success was anything other than a vote against the Mayor’s sometime abrasiveness, now’s the time to show it. But here’s the thing about bosses: They tend to get in those positions because they know stuff and have done stuff. Whatever the vices of bossism, it just won’t do to replace it with hasn’t-done-sh*t-ism.

Introducing No Trash Guy

NPR ran a piece on yesterday’s Day to Day about one Dave Chameides, who resolves to throw nothing away for a year and, of course, blog the experience. It has the ring of being the No Impact Man of 2008 (tho NIM’s experiment is still in progress.)

While it’s easy to be cynical about the green bandwagon, this one isn’t rubbing me wrong. For one thing, it’s a good way of demonstrating the practical effects of living in our current consumer culture. At the end of it all, Dave will tote up everything reused, recycled and composted, plus the stuff “in the basement.”

It also seems somehow more plausible than NiM. By that I may mean simply that it’s less guilt-inducing than NiM, I haven’t decided. No Impact Man set such an impossibly high bar my defenses fly up every time I try to read it. Thus far 365 Trash seems more like set of practical steps everyone could take, though maybe not to Dave’s extreme.

House of Pho Roadie in Progress and a Few Other Updates

We were in Delaware for the past week and a half. Oh, by the way. My wonderful mother-in-law broke down and got wi-fi’d,¹ so the blog stayed reasonably up to date. I still had family obligations and vulgar quantities of football to watch, so posting has been slow, but hopefully I’ve kept things interesting.

Now we are in New York City for Prof. W’s law school conference. We are, as usual, in a business hotel so internet access costs money, as opposed to the hotel’s downmarket “family” brand where it is free². Happily we have more access than usual, but it’s less reliable. That, plus the fact that I will have the kids most of the time means posting will be spottier still.

Meanwhile, my early Christmas present was a new digital camera, so I’ll have non-blurry fotos to share. So far I’m good for this view out our hotel window. We went out last night to two of NYC’s monuments to twenty-first century consumerist excess, M&M World and the Toys R Us off Times Square.

In addition to a handful of posts over the holidays, I spent a fair amount of time cleaning up the sidebars. I’ve also fixed some computer issues that kept me from easily updating the del.icio.us account. I’ll post more about the blogrolls later. For now, suffice it to say that if you have a blog I’d be interested it and/or are interested in trading links, now would be a good time to bring it up.

BTW, the coming semester will be a challenge, blogwise. In addition to some long-overdue work to build on my early freelancing success, I’ve taken on a second class at the U. Now I will be teaching the civil rights section of the undergrad Con Law class, in addition to the comparative criminal law class already on the books. I’m thinking through how to accommodate the blog in all that, which may include tweaking the way things are done around here.

¹This may seem fairly extraordinary when you learn that my mother-in-law just turned eighty. When you learn further that she is still teaching high school English and this after having raised twelve kids and securing an advanced degree, it should be clear that in fact my mother-in-law is extraordinary and the wi-fi is just business as usual.

²Thanks to reading Tim Harford’s The Undercover Economist I know that the Hilton family of hotels is engaged in a business-savvy practice of price discrimination, but that doesn’t make it less irritating.

Ohio 16: One Mystery Resolved and Another Close

Jill pointed out an item in the Canton Rep. that answers one of the questions posed in the Worst Blogpost Ever. The question was what was State. Sen. John Boccieri talking about when he said that Republicans were attacking his military record. The Rep. opinion piece notes that the anonymous blog Stark Politics ran an item criticizing Boccieri for missing votes -- votes it turns out that he missed because he had been called up. The original Stark Pol. piece also accused Boccieri of cynically using his military service for political gain.

As Jill points out (follow her links), the post has been purged of its most egregious attacks. Which sheds a little light on a second mystery. I've had a couple of conversations with folks in Stark Co. about who Stark Politics is. If you haven't had the pleasure, it's an anonymously written blog that occasionally lauds Republicans but spends most of it's content on bashing Democrats. It does so with such petty and picayune snark that feelings of nostalgia for Naugle creep in if one reads for too long.

The theory I've heard is that Stark Pol is run by someone fairly well connected with the local party. The cleansing of the blog certainly suggests the same. In the Rep. story Schuring is quoted as condemning the attacks. And the blog magically throttles back it's attack. It sure looks like someone got word to the blogger and he was a good little soldier.

As for Jill's post. She wonders aloud how to resolve the problem of state legislators who get called up for active duty. In the context of the Stark Pol. post, it seems a little beside the point. The post wasn't about addressing the problem, it was about political attack. But I see Jill working.

My inclination is to allow the situation to persist. Much of the political strategy of the administration has been to insulate the bulk of the electorate from the costs of the war. I agree that having state legislators unable to discharge their duties is a problem. But it's also a problem that those same men and women can't be with their families or work their day jobs. Absolutely anything that reminds Americans that we are at war and that there are consequences to being at war is a Good Thing.

It is not fair to the citizens of, say, Josh Mandell's district that they functionally have no representative. But much of war is unfair. And everyone should think about that and all the other attendant consequences to going to war before supporting candidates that do so recklessly.

Did Strickland Just Play Himself Out of the Veepstakes?

Huh. At the end of his Best Year Ever, Ted Strickland makes a rare political misstep. Strickland spent the weekend in Iowa campaigning for Hillary Clinton, his choice for the Democratic nomination. Yesterday the Dispatch broke a week-old interview with the Governor in which he publicly questioned the Iowa caucuses:

In an interview with The Dispatch last week, Strickland said the Iowa caucuses make "no sense." He called the GOP and Democratic caucuses "hugely undemocratic," because the process "excludes so many people." Anyone who happens to be working or is sick or too old to get out for a few hours Thursday night won't be able to participate, Strickland said.

"I'd like to see both parties say, 'We're going to bring this to an end,' " Strickland said, adding that he has no problem with the New Hampshire primary Jan. 8, because "at least it's an election."

Possibly worse, he dissed the state of Iowa as a whole:

"Iowa is not an attractive place to be in the wintertime," Strickland said, adding that Iowa "is not a representative state and the caucus is not a fair way to register public opinion, in my judgment."

Ted's penchant for speaking his mind, damn the politics, is admirable whether one agrees with the statement or not. Sometimes what he does aggravates me (reinstituting the Nativity scenes, offering to sign whatever the NRA wants) sometimes I'm happy about it (vetoing special ed. vouchers, taking a chance on H.B. 117). But it's always felt like he is governed more by what he thinks is right that political expedience.

The Iowa flap is similar. Strickland believes in democracy, he doesn't think the caucuses are democratic. So he says so.

All well and good, but this isn't the way to endear himself to the most hyper-controlled, message disciplined campaign in the cycle. Hillary spinners quickly distanced the campaign from Strickland's statements:

"Sen. Clinton believes that Iowa and New Hampshire play a unique and special role in the nominating process, and that process should be protected," spokesman Issac Baker said. "We're proud to have Gov. Strickland's support, but on this issue they disagree."

Time will tell whether the statements cause even minor damage to the Clinton campaign. But the campaign has to wonder if bringing Ted on board is worth¹ the risks of his steroidal independent streak.

Roundup:

Jerid noted the incident. Bill Sloat updated a post speculating that the Iowa swing was a form of Veep try-out. Law and More runs a narrative that misses wide right -- that Strickland has no sense of timing. To the extent anyone picks up on it, this needs to be squashed like a bug. Reaction from Newsday's blog and from 2008Central. And keep an eye here for Iowa blog reaction.

¹And by the way, Strickland isn't much of an asset as a Veep candidate in any event. Yes, he's popular, but he's popular because people hope he will turn the state around. He doesn't have a record of accomplishment. Worse, we Ohioans are as likely to be hacked off at the campaign for taking Ted away in the middle of the job as happy to see him as Veep.

Kucinich Offers to Obama His Iowa Supporters -- Both of Them

Poor Dennis. Even when he's trying to be reality-based he comes off as egocentrically delusional. He has publicly declared that his supporters in Iowa should move over to Obama for second round voting (in the caucuses anyone who fails to get 15% in a round drops off the ballot). Problem is, Kucinich is currently polling less than one percent in Iowa. Given that Kucinich's endorsee will be saddled with the liability of being Kucinich's endorsee, it's probably not worth the downside.

Set aside questions about whether Dennis actually has this sort of control over his followers. The fact that he is playing kingmaker with half a fistful of votes is less stand-up guy and more Dennis again saying "Look at me." After all, Chris Dodd hasn't offered his supporters a second choice. But see, Dennis is special.

Congratulations Zippy

Ohio dot com reports this afternoon that Zippy, mascot of the University of Akron, won Capital One National Mascot of the Year. Zippy defeated Goldy Gopher from the University of Minnesota in the final round.

The U. Akron community voted early and often, but no doubt the Minnesota faithful did as well. Clearly Zippy has garnered broader appeal.

Now if only the basketball team could get into the post season.

UPDATE: PsychoBilly puts it all in perspective.